Beginning of March

 Basketball finally ended the first weekend in March. Alan's and Spencer's team celebrated with pizza, laser tag, and arcades at Langer's. Coach Katie was very generous and paid for the entire thing! I wish we had taken a picture of the team all together. Then we ended the season with a tournament. We won on Friday night, but lost on Saturday. This wasn't Spencer's most winning season, but he still had a lot of fun, made some new friends, and improved his skills. He's not planning to play basketball next year so this was likely his last season.

Mason helping me saw a large branch into pieces so it could fit in our yard debris bin. We need a better saw!

Spencer and I got to go to a parent night for incoming freshman at our new high school. I mostly try to ignore the fact that he'll be in HS in the fall, but I had to face reality this night. This crummy shot was my only picture because I knew Spencer wouldn't appreciate me taking more of him in front of all of his peers. Haha! The school is huge (6A) and super nice. This is only the second year it has been open. The technology and sheer number of classes they offer is crazy. Even though I hate that Spencer is growing up, the opportunities he'll have are exciting. He has already submitted his choices for classes, but I don't think he'll get his actual schedule until August.

Semi-warm sandbox day!

Mason often likes helping in the kitchen - especially with desserts. He helped me chop Andes' mints for St. Patrick's Day cookies.

First Sunday without masks at Church! We had a brief break from masks last July, but then Oregon reinstated it's mask mandate. Covid numbers finally fell enough that they lifted the mandate in mid-March. Alan had to work that day and missed the excitement. 

I took an emotional resilience class through the stake from January-March. We had a party on our last day and took our masks off for the first time. I had already known a few of the people, but there were others I had never seen mask-less. It was totally shocking to me how different everyone looked from what my mind had automatically filled in. I really hope we never have to go back to masks like that again. It's important to see people's faces! We still have to wear them in doctor's offices, but that it is all.

And, first day of no masks at school in just under two years! Mason had never attended school without a mask. 

Mason and his buddy Krew that we take to school every day. Look at those great smiles!

Track season officially started the week before Spring Break. Spencer is running middle school track again and Mason surprised us by deciding to try track club over baseball this year. No complaints from us! This is the first sport Mason has tried though and that makes it the first time we've had both boys in a sport at the same time. Alan's work schedule is crazy during track season so he can't help much. That makes things a lot busier for me, but that's ok. We are thrilled that Mason finally has the confidence to try something new. So far, he isn't loving it though. I think it's harder than he expected and rotten weather definitely makes it harder to enjoy. Hopefully he'll start to have more fun once he gets a little stronger, makes some friends, and the weather is a little warmer.

Spencer helped Mason build his leprechaun trap this year. It just looked like a mess to me, but Mason was super excited and proud. ;)

Freckles O'Gold escaped again, but left some Lucky Charms and chocolates for the boys. I made green oatmeal for breakfast and miraculously, they ate it instead of Lucky Charms! Well, Mason maybe ate two bites. 

Mason wore my knee-high St. Patty's socks to school. Haha!

I was in charge of helping with a ward family history activity that evening. We advertised it as a St. Patrick's Day Family Celebration and were pleasantly surprised at the good turnout. (The last time I helped with a family history activity, we spent hours and hours prepping for a turn out of about 10. It was sad.) As the only woman on the committee, I got to do decorations which is really not my thing. I kept it very simple. For the actual activity, we listened to some ancestor stories from our Bishopric and a few youth and had a few contests finding relatives on Family Search. Mason was SUPER happy to win another box of Lucky Charms. I won't say it was the best ward activity ever, but I do think it helped people connect to each other in a little different way and it was just so nice to be able to gather like that again.

February

I didn't take very many pictures in February. It was a month filled with basketball for Spencer and traveling to Spokane for indoor track meets for Alan. 

We always have a few really nice days in winter here. They are sanity savers for me! So the boys got to play for bit while I worked on my computer from the garage. It was lovely.

I didn't really want to make Valentine's sugar cookies this year, but we did it anyway. I just made half a batch though and it was much more manageable. Mason had just bonked his head so he tried wearing an ice pack for a little while. Haha!

Basketball season continued with two practices during the week and games every Saturday. It was a bummer that Alan had to miss so much due to his travel schedule. Their team wasn't amazing this year, but it was fun to watch them improve their skills and learn to work as a team throughout the season. 

Mason finally finished his first piano book after year and a half of working through it VERY slowly with me. Hooray!!

Valentine's Day fell on a Monday this year so we had our fancy dinner on Sunday night. (Monday dinners are rushed for Spencer's piano lesson.) We had our traditional bbq drumsticks and veggie fondue. It was yummy, but someday I really need to get a fondue pot to make it work better.

We don't normally have fancy breakfasts on school mornings, but we had leftover waffles and I made a green smoothie for the holiday. This was Mason's first school Valentine's party and you would have thought it was Christmas by how excited he was when he came home with a big bag of cards and trinkets. The school didn't allow any candy valentine's this year and I wasn't complaining about that. ;) 

My preschool Valentine's party was on the 15th and since we had made Lego valentines for Mason I thought it would be easy to make more for my 40 preschool kiddos. I was wrong! My silicone tray only makes four at a time so it took me forever! They turned out cute though and I think the kids liked them.

One morning I got a text from our neighbor right before I left for work. She sent me this picture of Kiki caught in their racoon trap! Haha! Kiki likes to go outside for a few minutes after breakfast and I don't know what the neighbors expected by using cat food as bait for racoons. Thankfully I hadn't left yet and was able to go rescue her so she didn't have to spend the whole day in that cage. 

We wanted to do a short hike on President's Day but didn't want to travel far. I found a hike to the top of volcano right in Lake Oswego so we decided to try that. The instructions weren't great though and our "hike" wound up only being about a quarter of a mile long. Ha! It was in a residential area with really fancy homes and had a nice view though. Eventually we found another lower part of the trail that had some fun drain pipe tunnels. We ended our little adventure with a stop at Alan's new office in Durham. Athletic Timing rented a large office/warehouse space about 10 minutes from our house. Now they have a central location to keep all of the equipment, hold trainings, and record videos. No more long hours working on his laptop in our cramped closet. Hooray! I just wish it was big enough to store Alan's trailer too so it wasn't in our driveway all the time. ;)

We did a simple family adventure challenge one day where we had to look up some Guinness World Records and try to beat them ourselves. We chose to see how many times we could jump with a ball between our knees (that was super hard for Mason's short legs!) and measured our noses to see who had the longest. I'm pretty sure Alan won both contests! 

Buds on my hydrangea!! I wasn't 100% sure it was going to come back after I pruned it way too much and the super hot weather of last summer.

Homemade eggs noodles and chicken soup while Mason and I were both fighting colds. I loved this soup as a kid and it still tastes so good when you're sick. I have good memories of eating it at my Grandma LeFevre's house and of helping my Mom make it.